Featured Affiliate

Energy

September 7, 2007 07:52 AM - Reuters, Gilles Castonguay

(Video) Car makers will show off their latest efforts to fight pollution at Frankfurt's autoshow next week by unveiling models with improvements rather than substitutes to the standard internal combustion engine.
Under pressure to reduce harmful emissions produced by their vehicles amid fears of global warming, they are keen to show the greenest of intentions with the latest line of engines that consume fuel more efficiently.

September 7, 2007 06:49 AM - Reuters

South Korea aims to raise biodiesel content in domestic diesel to 3 percent from the current 0.5 percent by 2012, Seoul's energy ministry said on Friday.
The news ran counter to expectations that the government may increase the ratio to 5 percent as early as next year, market watchers said.

September 6, 2007 04:35 PM - UC Berkeley News

Dark energy is a mysterious force that pushes the universe outward against gravity's tendency toward collapse, and scientists have been eager to launch a satellite to probe the cosmos for the source of this expansion. Now a blue-ribbon panel has recommended that a dark matter mission be NASA's top priority and has narrowed the number of possible dark matter missions to three, including a joint LBNL/UC Berkeley probe called SNAP.

September 6, 2007 02:35 PM - Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. gasoline supplies dropped last week to their lowest level since Hurricane Katrina slammed into Gulf Coast refineries two years ago, the U.S. government said on Thursday.
But the crunch in stockpiles may not turn out to be a nightmare for drivers at the pumps as road travel is expected to slow with the end of the summer vacation season.
"We're not terribly concerned because we're at the end of the summer and demand for gasoline should start declining over the next several weeks," said Doug MacIntyre, analyst for the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

September 6, 2007 02:25 PM - Erik Kirschbaum -Reuters

Germany will cut support to solar energy under its renewable energy law from 2009, but the cuts will be too small to harm the growing sector, Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Thursday.
In an interview with Reuters, Gabriel said the government plans to raise support for renewable energy sources such as offshore wind as part of the efforts to raise the share of renewables to 45 percent of the German power by 2030 from 12.5 percent now.

September 6, 2007 02:24 PM - Steve James, Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Coal use grew by 30 percent in the last five years and future demand will likely fuel more power plant construction despite environmentalists' opposition, the head of U.S. coal mining company Peabody Energy said on Thursday.
"Our view is that you will continue to have opposition, but plants are being built today," President and Chief Executive Officer Gregory Boyce told an energy conference.

September 6, 2007 02:21 PM - Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - BrightSource Energy Inc, a private solar energy company, said on Thursday it filed for a construction permit from the California Energy Commission to build a 400-megawatt solar power plant in the Mojave Desert.
The project would cover between 3,000 and 3,500 acres near the Nevada border about 40 miles southeast of Las Vegas and use solar thermal technology to generate electricity at two 100 MW plants and one 200 MW plant.

September 6, 2007 12:55 PM - Haitham Haddadin, Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Geothermal energy could fill a sizable chunk of United States electricity requirements if legislative, technological and other challenges are met, a senior U.S. Department of Energy official said.
"Geothermal is going and blowing, there isn't a big hold-up to it," Alexander Karsner, assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, said at an energy conference Wednesday.
"The potential of the resource could potentially be up in the double digits of our total national generating capacity. That means 10, 15 to 20 percent, of U.S. generating capacity."

September 6, 2007 12:33 PM - Paul Schaefer, ENN

PORTLAND, Oregon - This high tech bouy generates power from wave action. It's called an AquaBuOY. The AquaBuOY is a floating buoy structure that converts the kinetic energy of the vertical motion of oncoming waves into clean electricity. The bouy is about to be towed to sea for further tests and refinement. The AquaBuOY is categorized as a point absorber, defined as having a small dimension in relation to the longer wave length in which it is operating. It utilizes a cylindrical buoy as the displacer and the reactor is a large water mass enclosed by a long vertical tube underneath the buoy

September 6, 2007 08:49 AM - Jeremy Lovell -Reuters

The nuclear power industry said on Thursday it provided a clean alternative to fossil fuels and a global warming crisis, shrugging off environmentalist concerns about nuclear waste and atomic security.
The term "renaissance" was the buzz word as nuclear industry players emerged from the 21-year-long shadow of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and gathered in London for two days of talks at the 32nd annual symposium of the World Nuclear Association.